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Divergent Conversations
Episode 81: Giftedness (Part 2): You’re a Zebra, Not a Weird Horse [featuring Dr. Matt Zakreski]
00:57:09
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- [00:00]
A
Hey everyone. You are listening to the Divergent Conversations podcast. We are two neurodivergent mental health professionals in a neurotypical world. I'm Patrick cassell.
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B
And I'm Dr. Neff.
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A
And during these episodes we do talk about sensitive subjects, mental health, and there are some conversations that can certainly feel a bit overwhelming. So we do just want to use that disclosure and disclaimer before jumping in. Thanks for listening.
- [00:26]
C
Foreign.
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A
Welcome back to Divergent Conversations and we are continuing on our giftedness series that we are doing. And today we have Matthew, Dr. Matt Zachresky, Psy D who is a high energy, professional speaker and clinical psychologist who specializes in working with the neurodivergent, gifted, twice exceptional ADHD, autism, dyslexic community. He has spoken more than 400 times all over the world on both stages and podcasts about supporting neurodivergent people in all walks of life, from schools to college to workplaces. He just wrote his book, the Neurodiversity Playbook. And we are going to be talking a lot about executive functioning today, giftedness and all things neurodivergence and wherever our brain decides to diverge to. So really happy to have you on the podcast today and thanks for making the time.
- [01:21]
C
Well, thanks for having me. I mean, you guys have rapidly become one of my favorite podcasts because I when my assistant was like, you should be on this podcast. I said, well, I should look into them. And about halfway through the first episode, I said, yeah, yeah. How did I not know you guys existed? But there are a lot of good podcasts out there, so better late than never, right?
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B
Absolutely, absolutely. How? Just kind of start us off. I'm a big contextual person. I like context for people. Can we set the stage with some context of just like, how do you come to this conversation? How do you enter this conversation of 2e giftedness? Is it from personal experience? I know you're also a psychologist. Like, yeah. How do you enter this conversation?
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C
Well, so like a lot of people in this field, this work is personal and professional for me. So I got identified as gifted in second grade, as a lot of kids in America are, and, you know, sort of bopped around and did really well. And everyone said I was going to go to Harvard and wasn't really sure what that meant. And then, and I hit something called the performance cliff in eighth grade, which is basically what happens when school becomes harder than. You are smart, but if you're a kid, you never develop the skills necessary to accommodate that.
- [02:41]
D
Right.
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C
The idea is you grow along with how hard school is. But if you don't ever have to study, you never learn how to study. If you never ask for help, you don't learn how to ask for help. And I, you know, I've actually done some research on this and it's quite, it's one of the few phenomena in childhood education that we can actually be proactive about because like, listen, it tends to happen between seventh and 10th grade. So, so if we know what's going to happen, what can we do in second, third, fourth, fifth grade to try and mitigate the impact of that? So got hit by the performance cliff. Looking back on it, it was very asynchronous. Didn't know that either. But the most important thing for this conversation is that halfway through high school I got diagnosed with ADHD and like a, you know, like one of those choice exceptional kids where I was so smart that no one ever questioned what else was going on.
- [03:34]
D
Right?
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C
But all those things that like I never knew when there were tests, I would just would study for them in the five minute passing time and sometimes I'd get a 97 and no one would ask any further questions or you know, they would sort of lean on the absent minded professor trope like, oh, of course Matt's backpack looks like a bomb went off. All brilliant people's backpacks look like that. And maybe, but also not all of them.
- [04:00]
D
Right?
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C
So, and then, you know, really spending my college years and twenties wrapping my head around with those two identities meant. And now as a 41 year old who leads openly with his neurodivergence as a twice exceptional adult, I say like, this is like people can learn with me and learn from me. And I think that's, that's an important piece of authenticity here because I've had the whole, basically the whole gamut of the neurodiversion experience and I want to share that with the people who want to listen to what I have to say.
- [04:40]
B
I love that. I love that. Yeah. And I do think this is so after we recorded our first episode, I opened up a thread in the community I run and it, the, the conversation thread like Blue blew up in ways that like we get a lot of activity in our community, but I like overnight it was like there are 80 comments and 100 comments. It is so clear to me that twice exceptional adults are looking for spaces to unpack the complexity of being both gifted and ADHD or gifted and autistic. And there's not a whole lot of spaces, I think for adults to kind of grapple with the identity questions that come along with having that complex intersection.
- [05:23]
C
Yeah, I mean, absolutely. Especially since we've never done a good job identifying gifted kids. And part of the reason I try and speak so much about the intersectionality of this work is at some fundamental level, teachers expect to see a kid like me walk through the doors, right? A young, upper middle class white boy, right. Who's like, who is, you know, very well behaved. And, you know, and they were like, oh, what a pleasant human he is and he must be a gifted kid. And sure, I happened to be. But we're going. We're much more likely to miss girls. We're much more likely to miss kids of color. We're much more likely to miss kids with physical disabilities. I mean, in one study, I think they've only done IQ tests on something like 13% of kids with fiscal handicap IEPs in this country. 13%. I mean, we're just. You were just not having these conversations, right? So there's a lot of people who, through various reasons, skip through the cracks. And now here they are as an adult taking IQ tests or joining Mensa, or as one of my gifted adults often says to me, he's like, I just keep getting advanced degrees. I just keep finding them. And I'm like, you don't find them. They're at the bottom of the cereal box, man. Like, you're earning them. He's like, I guess that's it. But yeah, I might get another doctorate. I'm like, as one does in one's 40s, right. And, you know, and he doesn't think he's a gifted person. And, and if you listen to this person whose name I can't use for obvious reasons. Yes, I'm talking about you.
- [07:01]
B
Well, so I will, I will say this. This is a thread that actually I've been teasing out recently because people, when I share that I'm not gifted, sometimes folks are surprised. And I'm. And I've been teasing that out. And I think it's because I'm an intellectual. Academia has always been comfortable for me as an autistic. I am more autistic dominant than adhd. And so the world of ideas is how I explore my inner world. You don't have to do all of the social chitchat in academia. And so one thing I've been teasing out is the difference between intellect, like being an intellectual, and being gifted. And I would say I'm an intellectual who loves academia and also has thought about getting a second doctorate, but I'm not Gifted. So we are out there. But I do think it's easily to conflate being an intellectual and being gifted. But I think there can be some differences there as well.
- [07:56]
A
Yeah, and I want to jump in on that because we talked about this last week. And, Matt, something you said really resonate with me. For me, I was what you're describing, like straight A's, but also because straight A's and wasn't, like, creating behavioral issues in classrooms. I went through the cracks pretty easily and wasn't diagnosed autistic or ADHD until my late 30s. So a lot of that time, you know, you're spent in this, like, void where you're like, things are coming really easily to me in certain senses, but everything else is really challenging to me. Which is what Megan kind of mentioned before, where it was like, okay, you're so intelligent in all of these ways. However, all of these things that are supposed to be super simple or super easy to figure out or navigate are so overwhelming. And it creates that, like, paradox and that kind of confusion from the external world where it's like, how come you can't figure out how to do A, B, C, D and E?
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C
I mean, if there's a. If there's a single truism in this field, I think it's the neurodivergent experience of life is that hard things are very easy for us, and easy things are very hard for us.
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D
Right.
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B
That is so well said. Yes.
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C
I tend to speak in bumper stickers.
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B
So I love it. I'm here for it.
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C
You know, one of my. One of my clients is a. You know, he's. He's done a couple different jobs, but he's an EMT now, and he's the world's best emt. You put him in a crisis situation, his brain locks in. It's. It's that the dopamine gates are wide open, and he just charges. And then he's like, and then I will go back to the firehouse and I will sit there and it will take me three hours to write an after action report, which, like, literally he needs to write four sentences. And. And that's the ADHD experience. Right. Just this. You know, I mean, he has saved multiple lives, but then he got fined by his superiors because he didn't get his paperwork in on time. And the advocate in me is like, do we really care about the freaking paperwork? Like, why are we focused on this? And the therapist in me is like, there's gotta be a way we can solve this problem for him.
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D
Right.
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C
We're testing out a voice to text for him now, see if that makes things a little easier. I think his reports are going to go from four sentences to four pages because like, and then this happened. And then this happened and they had this really cool picture on the wall and then this thing happened and they had a dog, like, focus.
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B
Oh my gosh, I love that. That's so funny. Yeah, Progress notes. So I, I, yeah, work with a lot of neurodivergent clinicians and progress notes. Oh my goodness. And for me, I, my notes were always way too long. Supervisors were always like, this needs to be shorter, this needs to be shorter. But I'm like, but you need all the context in a note. So it would take forever.
- [10:47]
C
It's brutal. And a lot of my colleagues who are in these similar spaces, they use ChatGPT to write their notes and that's not my thing. I use templates that sort of, in my head, they're always mad libs. I met with client name and we talked about verb and feeling and like, you know, it's a shortcut, but it gets the job done. You know, everybody finds their little ways forward. But to think about this, you know, Patrick, to think about like the way that these things fit together or don't fit together, one of the things that we don't talk nearly enough about in the neurodivergence space is the concept of asynchronous development.
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B
Yeah.
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D
Right.
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C
So like, you know, if you're a neurotypical person, you develop synchronously. The, you know, you basically hold together. If you're neurodivergent, and especially the more neurodivergent you are, your development tends to become more and more asynchronous. So you might have a 10 year old who's intellectually 17 and you know, Megan, to use your words, academically 15. Right. Still advanced, but not the same level of that.
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D
Right.
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C
But then socially 9 and emotionally 8.
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D
Right.
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C
How do you find a way to meet that kid's needs when they really exist in five different developmental spheres? And actually, so my, my mentor, Dr. Jane Peterson, she always referred to it as the rule of five.
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D
Right.
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C
Because why does, if you have a room of six gifted kid, why does it feel like 30? Well, it's because the rule of five. Right. They literally are five different kids in one. So it's exhausting for the parents, it's exhausting for the teachers, it's exhausting for the, God bless them all, the Boy Scouts of America people. You're doing The Lord's work, I promise you.
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B
Oh, my goodness. I love this because I have two kids, and my spouse and I are always like, how do people have more than two kids? And you're telling me it's because I'm parenting 10 kids?
- [12:53]
C
Have 10 kids.
- [12:54]
B
Okay, I'm going to start telling people that. Like, I'm exhausted because I have 10 kids.
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C
What have you guys been doing? You're like, other than the obvious, you know, but, you know, you guys could have a baseball team. Congratulations.
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B
Yes.
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C
No, it's. It's so wild to me. And it was. And honestly, that's sort of at the heart of why I wrote my book and why I do the work I do. Because when you can name these concepts, when you tell people there's a word.
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D
For.
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C
Anchors, something fundamental about the personal experience of this. Like, are you trying to tell me that. That, like, most ADHDers are half plus two emotional age? So if I'm 14, I'm really like, 10 and a half emotionally?
- [13:48]
B
Damn.
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C
Does that explain a lot? Oh, man. Middle school sucked for lots of reasons, but that was one of them. Like, and that's just. And that's just contributes to this burgeoning sense of otherness that just seems to percolate around us at all times because our brains are just not wired like everybody else's.
- [14:11]
B
You know, that was something that someone said when we were talking about this in my community, was how painful it was to not have to not be mirrored accurately, to not be attuned to. And I would think if, you know, if one person is five and we're talking about all these different developmental stages, the attunement from the adults in that person's life would be so difficult, which would be so isolating and so othering, as you're mentioning.
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D
Oh, man.
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C
Well, and like, when I was writing my book, we. I was doing some research on mirror neurons. Like, mirrors are, like, one of my favorite things.
- [14:45]
B
Yeah, they're fascinating.
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C
And. And it's funny because, like, when Patrick took a sip of whatever. Whatever you're drinking, my brain was like, am I thirsty, too? I think I am. And I had my sip of my coffee like, 30 seconds later. But what the research shows is that in neurodivergent people, their mirror neurons fire at a different rate. So, you know, I think the best way to explain this is that if a neurotypical person's mirror ons fired. Link 4, 4. Time. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3,4. A gifted person's mirror neurons are gonna fire 16, 16 time. 1, 2, 3, four. 1, 2, 3, Four. 1, 2, 3, FOUR. 1, 2, 3, FAce. 1, 2, 3, Fourth. They're gonna sync up every once in a while, right? Because, you know, it's. It's a. It's a factor of four, but there's just so much happening in the beats in between the thing that it's this sort of herky jerky, are we actually doing this or not thing. Like, some of the research indicates that people would be better off having people who have entirely dissimilar things rather than these things that sync up every once in a while and then don't.
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B
Yeah. The inconsistency, I would think, would actually create more of a sense of almost threat or unsafety than consistently being miss, like, unattuned, unconnected, or consistently being connected. That makes sense. And that. That's specific to. To giftedness. Or is that also true of, like, ADHDers and autistic people? Or is that research specifically gifted kids and mirror neurons?
- [16:22]
C
That was specifically the gifted kids. Though I would wager that the. That it exists in ADHD years as well. I just haven't found it.
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B
Yeah, that's fascinating. I want to go dive into that. It's really interesting. Okay, so misattunement. So I'm curious, because a lot of our listeners are adults who have discovered this later in life, that sort of level of misattunement, even on a fundamental mere neuron misattunement level, because I know you work as a psychologist. What do you see being some of the identity issues that come from that for folks that they're working through later in life?
- [17:04]
C
Well, top of that chart, right. Is imposter syndrome. I mean, it is neurodivergent. People are so much more likely to have imposter syndrome, and they're more likely to have a more intense version of it.
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D
Right.
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C
So imposter syndrome is when you doubt your accomplishments and have a persistent internalized threat of being discovered as a fraud. And even to feel that way requires a certain amount of mental acuity.
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D
Right.
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C
Because you have to be able to reflect on oneself. But one of the things that occurs in being neurodivergent is that you look enough like everybody else that you're sort of either subjectively or objectively held to their standard. But then what happens is because your brain's so different, your way of going about getting to the thing is so different, your awareness of that difference makes you feel like a fraud. And so people who are made to feel different in some way are much more likely to have imposter syndrome. The way this shows up vitally for our conversation is as a gifted adhd, I have words for the things that I do that are different. You know, the fact that I can that, you know, just not this past two weekends ago, I cooked dinner for 17 people and we had a great time and I was bringing everything out and then I'm like, cool, now where's my phone?
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D
Right?
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C
So like in the middle of cooking dinner for all these people and getting the place settings nice and it was, you know, it was a really good dinner. I lost my phone and it turns out my phone was in the breadbasket. Why was I even basket? Great question. I have no idea.
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D
Right.
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C
So like the duality of that. But the. But the idea that if you looked at it, it's just, well, that's a beautiful dinner. Anybody can make a beautiful dinner. Knowing the chaos and strife that took takes you to get there. That's like, oh wait, I'm not like everybody else. Maybe I'm only here successfully because they took pity on me. Or maybe I'm just here with all these friends because I fooled them. And if you never grew up with the words that unders that explained who you are and the understanding that comes with that knowledge, you're going to assume that those differences are personal, logical.
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D
Right?
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C
It's like right isn't, you know, this isn't Megan's brain. This is Megan the character.
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B
Absolutely it is. My. This is why like one of my biggest advocacy stump speeches for like power of identification and diagnosis is, you know, some professions in our field are nervous of the label, but I'm often saying like we are just replacing character based labels with a label that like this is how my brain works. This makes sense. Yeah, I, I've always been a very shame filled person, but I've been able to at least start working my way through that shame after identification because I, yeah, I resonate so deeply with this. I often use the metaphor of like the Oz figure in wizard of Oz. How it's like this little man and there's the big screen. I've always felt like that like anytime I do something that gives me praise, I'm like, yeah, but you just pull back the curtain and you're going to see like me frantically cobbling this together so that, yeah, that experience of imposter syndrome. And then I like how you're connecting it to. And then when we have names and language to describe our experience, that's actually one of the things that helps reduce that imposter syndrome. Because all of a sudden we have names for these things. We can articulate what's happening in our inner world and in our mind.
- [20:57]
D
Yeah, my.
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C
My version of that is that it's. It's always better to know that you're a zebra, not a weird horse.
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B
Okay, I need a collection of your bumper stickers. You do have some good ones, right?
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C
How many weird horses are walking around there? There are actually zebras. They're like, oh, it's, it's totally normal that I've. That, you know, I count all of my shirts and I make sure that they're in size order, and I can't go to sleep until my shirts are counted. That's. That's. That's what everybody does. Like. No, that's that OCD autistic world. And we'll figure out what that means for you. You know, I mean, fundamental to what we all do, right. Is that differences aren't deficits.
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D
Right.
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C
That our brain differences make us who we are. But there isn't a brain that is better or worse than anybody else's brain. And it is so easy to get a lot of messaging, especially in Western culture, that if we cannot optimize or monetize your difference, you're worse. And that breaks my heart for a lot of my clients, especially my adult clients who come to me in their 30s, 40s, 50s, like, I think this is who I am. And I'm like, oh, if only we could have gotten you 30 years ago.
- [22:12]
D
Right?
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B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, I have more questions, but I also. Patrick, I don't want to be Mike hogging the space.
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A
No, Mike, hog away.
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B
Okay.
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A
You know, I relate to a lot of this, for sure. Talk about imposter syndrome, self doubt, perfectionism in my world all the time. And I think that's a real piece of it. And when we do have the language for our experiences, there's so much more validation, whether it be internalized or externalized. And I think it just leads to such an increase in understanding. And I never think that the, like, self criticism, Megan's Oz analogy, or any of it really dissipates completely. But I think it gets so much more manageable when we have the right language and the right words and the right ways to describe things instead of just consistently creating this narrative that I am really different than everybody else and someone is eventually going to figure that out, no matter how hard I try not to be.
- [23:21]
D
Yeah.
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B
Like I'm hiding something and it's just a matter of time before people figure this out. I actually wanted to ask you, Matt, because I had this. So when we were reading your bio, and it's like, you've given 400 talks. I'm like, oh, my goodness, that's impressive. Like, talks. I do them, but I. They make me very anxious and I have to prep a lot for them. Do you still have imposter syndrome? As someone who has given 400 talks.
- [23:43]
C
In this topic, you want to talk about imposter syndrome? I'm sitting here being like, oh, you have my old bio for some reason. So that's fine. I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm not freaking out. It's. It's good. It's great.
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B
So, so what. What about the old bio is. Is causing some cringe right now?
- [24:03]
C
It's like closer to 900 now. And it's.
- [24:06]
B
Oh, okay.
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C
Because my mentor was like, you have to count your. Your webinars to those counters presentations. And so it's, you know, I mean, like, it's something like 490 talks in person and like 430 some odd webinars. So.
- [24:28]
B
Okay, so given that you've done 900 talks where like. Yeah. Do you still experience imposter syndrome?
- [24:36]
C
All the time. And. And I actually tell people that I'm going to stop giving talks when I stop feeling anxious about them. Because to me, my anxiety means that I care. And, and yes, there are times where I'm like, oh, they are going to drag me out of here by my ear. The fraud police are going to show up and they're going to be like, you there? I'm like, ah, you got me. I had a good run. But can I. Can I tell you guys my best imposter syndrome story?
- [25:12]
B
Sure, please.
- [25:14]
C
So I went to Wake Forest University undergrad. And while I was there, Maya Angelou was a professor at Wake. So you had to. She taught this second semester class for seniors in poetry. You, of course, had to apply to get in. And being the gifted kid I am, I was like, totally doing that. Was I an English major? No, I wasn't. That's a good question. Thank you for that. Um, so I got in and her class was not in on campus. We had to drive to her house, which is a thing like, you know, imagine driving the terrible beater car you drove in college to Maya Angelou's house. So we're sitting around and we introduce ourselves. And I went last and I was like, I'm Matt. I'm a senior. I'm a psychology major. I'm from New Jersey. And I don't belong here. And you know, everybody chuckled, right? Because everyone was feeling some version of that. And Dr. Angelou, she looked at me and she was like, so let's talk about that for a second because one of two things can be true. One, congratulations, you fooled me. You are actually a terrible writer and you faked being a good writer so well that I let you into my class. Or two, you are actually a good writer and you have some talent in yourself that you don't recognize. But I can. And I'm telling you guys, I have been speechless seven times in my life, and that was one of them. My Angela looked into my soul. She was like, you there? I'm like, oh, no. So how does this apply to what we're talking about? I just realized at some point that, that I am good at what I do. And if people see value in that, that has to be louder than my own self doubt. Yeah, like there's. Yes, there's a non zero chance that I fooled them. And I don't actually know what I'm talking about. But every time I give a talk, that percentage gets smaller. And I, you know, I, I don't think it will ever be zero, you know, way too much going on up here for it to be zero. But I think that, I think every time I do it, I do a talk, I do a webinar, I answer somebody's question, it reaffirms that the value that other people see in me is real, even if I can't always see it myself.
- [27:35]
B
And I love that you're able to take that in and hold.
- [27:38]
C
That took a lot of therapy, but you know what? I bet, But I own that.
- [27:45]
D
Right?
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C
Like, I lead with my neurodiversions, I talk to my clients, that I see a therapist, like, you know, I mean, fundamentally, aren't we all here to practice what we preach? I mean, that's, you know, that's, I think, why people are drawn to us in the work we do.
- [28:02]
B
Yeah, Yeah.
- [28:07]
A
I have a lot of thoughts on this topic, but I don't want to go down that pathway. I want to, I'm going to. Well, because like, I, you know, self doubt imposter syndrome. Perfectionism is so much of my other world of like talking about it.
- [28:21]
B
And yes, it is. But also I think that is so core to like the gifted experience that, that people find a lot of freedom in naming. I mean, you don't have to go down that, but like, I want you to feel free to go down that rabbit hole. Yeah.
- [28:35]
A
I mean, that way things where I think the more we openly talk about how we're feeling, right. Like when we're feeling different, when we're feeling uncomfortable, when we're feeling unsettled, those are ways to help other people feel connected to humanity. And I, I, whenever I'm doing talks, you know, I just did the Doubt yourself, do it anyway summit in Italy and you know, I was the final speaker and I put myself last because some of it was ego. I was like, I want to speak last at an event that I created. But also because the way I speak is different than the way you speak. Megan, I know you've talked about like really prepping and really prepping. I really have to experience the experience to know what I'm going to talk about, if that makes sense. So like I had to absorb five days of the experience to know what I was going to say when I got on stage because I wanted to make sure it was what everyone needed to hear or what everyone wanted to hear in terms of like content. And my heart's beating out of my chest and beating out of my chest and I'm pacing and I'm probably stimming quite a bit and just naming. I'm feeling really overwhelmed. I'm feeling a ton of self doubt and imposter syndrome. And I mean, Chris as hell, it helps everyone in the stage and you see the audience go like, it's like collective. And I think the authenticity piece has always served me really well in that realm. But I still have massive self doubt and imposter syndrome and harsh entered world like criticism throughout and afterwards and pick it apart to no end. So it's just, it's really fascinating, but I think it's like this hyper awareness of how uncomfortable you are moving through the world a lot of the time. And by being able to introduce some of that discomfort, it actually allows for a lot of people who are feeling similarly to feel seen and affirm and connected for the first time potentially in their lives.
- [30:35]
B
Yeah, yeah. I mean, soft emotions, like leading with vulnerability, leading with soft emotions can be so connecting. It's it. And it can. Oh gosh. This is a huge throwback to my older work. But I used to think a lot like Martin Buber talks about the power of encounter, like having a true encounter with the other. And I think like those more vulnerable soft emotions are what kind of usher in encounter. And I think we live in a world, frankly, where human encounter at that kind of deep ontological level is frankly really hard to come by.
- [31:09]
C
Yeah.
- [31:12]
B
And now we've really diverged from giftedness.
- [31:16]
C
But yes and no, because there's this concept within gifted psychology called overexcitabilities.
- [31:22]
D
Right?
- [31:23]
C
So this is Dabrowski's work. And, and the idea is that everybody has things they resonate with, right? Socially, emotionally, intellectually, creatively, sensori. And if you can conceptualize a neurotypical person's way of receiving and sending that information as sort of the satellite dish that you'd stick on the side of your house if you want to get DirecTV, you know what I'm saying? Like, right. It's like reasonably sized satellite dish. If you're gifted, your satellite dish is the size that they put in the Nevada desert to look for aliens, right? Like, they're just giant arrays of things. So you feel more things more often more deeply for longer.
- [32:09]
D
Right?
- [32:10]
C
And. And I think that's so that that feeling of otherness is felt more often more deeply. That feeling of discomfort impacts us more because we experience the sharp edges of that discomfort at a much more personal level. I mean, you know, my, My colleague, Josh Shane, he. He always says, he's that gifted people don't get sad, they get despondent. Gifted people don't get angry, they get enraged. People, you know, they don't like somebody, they love somebody.
- [32:47]
D
Right?
- [32:48]
C
And, you know, I mean, it's the, you know, it's like what Robin Williams was talking about in Dead Poet Society, you know, like, you know, the word very will not do. There are better words to use. We will use those better words because that's our experience. And, you know, I. I had the good fortune to do a TEDx talk this year. And similar to you, Patrick, the. I was the last speaker. And it was so interesting because I could tell from the responses of my cohort who was neurodivergent and who wasn't because of the way they entered into that space and the emotional cost on the back end of it. And the speaker who went before me, when she left stage, she stepped into my arms and crumbled into sobs. And I was like, this is a person who was on the bleeding edge of this emotional experience. And it is not to say anybody's experience was worse than hers.
- [33:47]
D
Right.
- [33:47]
C
I'm not trying to amplify that. You know, like, oh, she cried, so she must have cared. It was the. The depth and intensity of that crying. There was something cathartic about it. And I felt very much like that was a experiential moment. That was something profound, honestly, because it was. We shared something so raw and personal. Together. And I think that if there is a. I think the true gift of giftedness is the ability to experience those transcendent moments, to have that satellite dish that can pick up that signal from Beetlejuice 7 or wherever the heck that's coming from. And that's a pretty awesome thing.
- [34:42]
B
Yeah, absolutely. I'm a big fan of positive psychology and kind of the study of awe and the study of transcendence. So that's really interesting. I mean, I've definitely talked about how I think being autistic specifically makes me deeply existential, but I hadn't made the connection between kind of awe and overexcitability. But it makes sense to me. I. And I think especially those of us who are hyper. Hypersensitive in our sensory perception, I think we're picking up on a lot of that a lot of the time.
- [35:14]
C
And it can. And it can send us spinning into that perfectionist imposter syndrome space. Because if your sensory things are ramped up to 13 and I'm walking and you make a micro expression, Megan, you know, for a million reasons, you were holding back a sneeze or you had a flash memory of something awkward that happened to you in seventh grade. Or maybe I did put my foot in my mouth. Maybe I've got some mustard on my shirt. Who knows, right? But I see that micro expression, and because I'm super sensitive, I'm like, what? Once you do that?
- [35:47]
D
Right.
- [35:47]
C
Did you see Inside out, too?
- [35:51]
B
I haven't yet, but I really am excited, too. But I haven't yet.
- [35:55]
C
There's. There's a scene in the car where Riley is driving with her teenage friends. And the way they break down, like, the nuances of the social interaction and anxiety and envy and anxiety. I like sitting there, I was like, yes, this is.
- [36:11]
B
Yeah.
- [36:12]
C
You know what I'm talking about, right? Like, it's just. Oh, yeah.
- [36:15]
B
So I. Okay, this. Actually, I kind of want to segue to talk about giftedness and experiences in therapy or maybe more broadly, neurodivergence. Neurodivergence, Giftedness. Because I know exactly what you're talking about. And one thing that I felt. I felt both as a client but as a therapist is the importance of being interpersonally honest. And so, like, I have definitely had those clients where they are tracking everything. And if I'm doing a zoom session and I look at the corner of my computer to see the time, they're noticing that, and they're going to ask me about it, and if I'm bored, I have to be Honest about the fact that I'm bored. If I got distracted, I have to be honest about that and that I feel like that is so foundational for psychological safety. I know with my therapist I worked with for a long time, I was constantly asking them about interpersonal aspects. And it's because of that hypervigilance you just named of. I'm tracking everything, and I have a narrative that I'm assigning to it. But I think a lot of times. Well, especially in therapy, if we're trained to be a blank slate, then we're not trained to cue in and to give interpersonal safety to our clients. So I guess I just gave you my cards of. I feel like that's pretty important for neurodivergent therapy. But I am curious, because that's a question that came up too, is like, do gifted people need a different kind of therapy? Like, are there some therapy modalities that just don't, like, work as well or are more frustrating, especially given how analytic many of their brains are?
- [37:56]
C
I. I mean, my. My mentor in the therapy space was a classically trained Freudian. She.
- [38:03]
B
Oh, fascinating. Okay.
- [38:05]
C
She was. She was the first African American woman to ever receive a PhD in psychology and a JD in law, maybe ever, but certainly in our. In our general neck of the woods in Philadelphia.
- [38:20]
D
And.
- [38:21]
C
But, like, she didn't wear a wedding ring. I didn't know she was married until I worked with her for a year. There were no pictures of anyone in her office.
- [38:29]
D
Right.
- [38:31]
C
And. And that blew my mind. Well, I was like. But I. But like, I bear my soul to you in supervision twice a week. And you. You are that black box.
- [38:41]
D
Right.
- [38:42]
C
And you were just, you know, and I think that especially if we're training new clinicians, it is a safer place to put them, is in the. You're a black box. But I think that. Because I think it's hard to. To know how to parse out.
- [39:00]
B
Yeah. Self disclosure, that is for the client, not for yourself. Absolutely. That is a really important skill set. I appreciate you naming that. Yeah.
- [39:09]
C
It's so easy to overcorrect.
- [39:10]
D
Right?
- [39:11]
B
It's so easy. Yeah.
- [39:13]
C
That's one of my imposter syndromes. Like, am I sharing too much? Am I centering myself too much? I don't think so, but you never know. But I think that in the. If we're doing effective neurodivergent affirming therapy, authenticity has to be a piece of it. Even if the authenticity is. I can't tell you that. I would love to.
- [39:37]
D
Right.
- [39:38]
B
Yeah, yeah, right.
- [39:39]
C
I'm to one of my clients all the time. Like, that's more the kind of thing that you talk about with your girlfriends, not with me.
- [39:45]
D
Right.
- [39:46]
C
And I was like, you can talk about anything you want to me, but I can only respond in some ways because of the boundaries of this relationship. And we don't always navigate those conversations well.
- [39:58]
D
Right.
- [39:59]
C
And I mean well in the sense of that it's a pleasant conversation, but they're important conversations. And to me, I'm always able to authentically name the fact that to me, that's how I show you respect. I honor our relationship by honoring what that process is and feels like for me. And, and I, when I get to train clinicians or parents or teachers, I'm like, you are absolutely able to, to layer this out, right. And here's how you do it without while being true to the person you want to be. And I think that's the, I think that's the key to making meaningful connections with neurodivergent people in whatever your job might be.
- [40:44]
B
So, yeah, I think that authenticity, because I think a lot of us, well, and maybe this is more about the autistic experience, but I know, like, there's a. We're getting mixed messages a lot because people will say something but mean something else. So then when we encounter someone who is consistent and like, this is what I say and this is what I mean, or let me unpack that for you or let me tell you why I can't answer that or why I won't answer that. That level of consistency and authenticity, I know for me that's. Those are the moments my hyper vigilance can relax. Those are the moments I feel psychologically safe because so much of my life has been like, is that really what that person means? Or is there a hidden meaning that I'm not picking up? And it's all. And then the analyst starts around that. Beyond the authenticity piece, are there other things you've noticed with gifted clients around kind of how you work therapeutically that either works well or perhaps doesn't work as well?
- [41:44]
C
I think the biggest thing is understanding that everything is connected. Like we might be talking about, you know, your relationship with your boss, and you feel underappreciated and overworked in that role. And you can point out how those are echoes of teachers and mentors and maybe your parents and maybe your significant other, you know, because through that framing, we can do a lot of insight oriented therapy. That's very helpful. And you know, I think that transcends modality.
- [42:19]
D
Right.
- [42:20]
C
I don't think that's a cb.
- [42:22]
B
Right, right.
- [42:22]
C
That's just good therapy. And I actually think the other thing is, is, is speed. I. There are times in therapy session where I'm like, man, I just did like five sessions worth of therapy in this session. Because if people are really vibing on what you're doing, they're picking it up quickly, they're making associations, they're on to the next step. And you know, my, my mentor in grad school, a great psychologist by the name of Dr. Mike Cassano, he was like, you're never going to be good at manualized CBD treatment because you go too fast. I'm like, right, Is that bad? You know, like, he's like, I was really good at this because I'm like, in session one, we do these four things. You hit these beats at these times. Every session one looks the same. And I'm like, but what about the differences? You know, and that's, that's why I'm never going to do National Institutes of Health studies. And I'm not, you know, that's not my strength. But in creating a customized personalized therapy plan for a neurodivergent 11 year old, then I am the guy you want to call because I've got a deep bag of tricks that we can send through the lens of what that kiddo needs and hopefully make a positive impact.
- [43:47]
B
Yeah.
- [43:50]
A
Yeah, that makes total, total sense because I would relate hard to that. Can't do the manualize step by step. This is how everything has to be every single time. Like that. That just does not work for my brain. I'm just paying attention to time. And I really want to get to something you said before we started recording. And I don't know how much time what you said would take up, but I was curious about your statement about when you said 80% autism, 80% ADHD, and you made the smushing sign with your hands and then we started recording.
- [44:23]
C
So I remember stuff in the preshow.
- [44:26]
D
Yeah.
- [44:27]
B
Yes, I. Well, because you mentioned how you have listened to our podcast on 1.5 speed and you were. I like how you said, you're like, I was doing the gift kid syndrome thing, I think you said, and I was doing 1.5 speed. And I was like, oh, I thought that was an ADHD thing, because I do that too. And that's when you were like, yeah, well, giftedness. 80% ADHD, 80% autism. Smush, mush, smush.
- [44:49]
C
Yeah, well, and that's really. If you dig into the brain scans on this, you know, you can see, you know, a neurotypical brain, a gifted brain, and a twice exceptional brain. And you can see how different things light up in different intensities.
- [45:07]
D
Right.
- [45:07]
C
So, you know, there's so much overlap between the autistic brain and the gifted brain. And then some of the stuff that doesn't overlap is best explained by things that are more consistent with the ADHD brain. You know, Russell Barclay's team, you know, they found that, you know, one of his grad students calls it spider sense, that the ADHD brain makes connections between things faster than it realizes it can. So then you have knowledge that you don't know why it, where it came from. And I was sitting there, I was like, right. You might think, well, gosh, isn't that more of a gifted thing?
- [45:46]
D
Maybe, right?
- [45:47]
C
But it's also the idea of an ungoverned, executive functioning system can operate in hyperspace. And that's unbelievably awesome because I think that you really are seeing the creativity and outside the box thinking that exists in ADHD years but can be, can be amplified by the particular strengths of the gifted brain.
- [46:16]
B
It makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I see a lot of kids who are like, get really frustrated in math because they're like, I know the answer, but my teacher needs me to show my work, but I don't know how to show it. And it's like a lot of that. Well, I, I know the answer, but I don't know how I got here. And that experience of then needing to show your work in school can be really frustrating for many.
- [46:37]
D
Oh my gosh.
- [46:37]
C
If I, if I had a nickel for every time I had that conversation, I could play my student loans. I mean, just like some kids just know, like the kid on the basketball team who pulls up and hits a Steph Curry three pointer, she's like, where was your elbow? What was your range of motion? Like, we don't ask kids that in other aspects. A kid who hammers out a guitar solo, you're like, why are your finger placements where they are when we hit that flow state? I mean, it's, it's really sort of beyond time. It's, I mean, like, this is going to get very existential, but, like, I think it's the closest thing we get to like being superhuman. I mean, we really are outside ourselves. It's kind of amazing.
- [47:23]
B
I've thought about that a lot with like hyper focus, monotropic focus and like flow state and transcendence the kind of the overlap of the experience of getting and quiet ego. The idea of, like, getting outside of ourself and how peaceful that is. Yeah, Yeah, I like that.
- [47:40]
A
I just want to say that the only class I ever failed in my life was freshman year college statistics, when I could find out the answers, but I couldn't figure out how I found out the answers. And I failed that class because I could not give concrete examples of how I got to my results. And when you said that Megan or Matt, one of you, that really jogged my memory for what a horrible experience.
- [48:05]
B
Well, and that probably feeds imposter syndrome, too, because it's like, well, I. I got the answer, but I don't know how I got it. Yeah, yeah.
- [48:13]
A
And I'm like, no, everyone around me failed. How. What. What are you talking about? I just knew the answer, and I don't know how to explain that and how I'm really questioning my own self in all of this is what it was like.
- [48:27]
B
Well, Matt, I know you've got to go here in a minute. We also did say we talked about executive functioning, and we literally haven't talked about it at all. Do you have any, like, good bumper stickers for describing the executive functioning experience of, you know, neurodivergent or 2E humans?
- [48:43]
C
Maybe I'll just come back. I mean, if you'll have me.
- [48:46]
B
I would love to. This hasn't been a very, like, energizing conversation. I'd personally love to have you back. And I think based on the feedback we've gotten so far, I can tell this is a conversation that there's a lot of energy and interest around, for sure.
- [49:02]
C
I mean, I think if you're going to distill the whole executive functioning thing into. Into one bumper sticker, as it were.
- [49:10]
D
Right.
- [49:11]
C
Is that executive dysfunction is always a question of can't, it's never a question of won't. And that's a thing that a lot of parents and teachers and frankly, even mental health professionals forget. Like, I remind all my clients when their sessions are, even though they get an email reminder, because it's not that they won't pay attention to it, it's sometimes they can't pay attention. And, you know, and I. I sat on a panel on this at a conference. I'm like, is it ethical to charge ADHD clients cancellation fees?
- [49:48]
D
Right.
- [49:48]
C
Like, are we. Are we punishing a part of a person's brain that we're actually trying to help?
- [49:54]
D
Right.
- [49:55]
C
And we could spend another hour on that idea together. So I Always tell my clients that the what, what, what gets in the way the most when, when loading in skills of executive functioning is the amount of mental energy it takes to opt into something to choose to do the thing takes a lot of mental energy. So if you can hook the thing you need to do the stuff you're already doing, then you have gotten rid of the. You've minimized the hardest step and stepped into a space of look at us playing to your strengths. Like the example I always use is like I hate going to the gym, right? And I will have free time during my day where I could go to the gym, but I never do so if so I always make it. So I go to the gym on the way home from dropping my kids off at school, right? Because they're the gym is between me and my kids school. If I don't go, then if I don't go between 8:30 and 9, I don't go because it's hard for me to convince myself to do the thing. It's not a willpower thing, it's not a strength of character thing, it's a dopamine thing. And but when I've hooked it to something else, then it just becomes a thing I do. And so for all my adhders out there who struggle with this stuff, connect the thing to something that you would rather do and if you can't connect it beforehand, then connect it during using that body doubling technique, right? And be on the phone with your mom while you do your dishes, right? You know, put on an awesome podcast like this one while you fold your laundry, you know, have a friend come over and pay bills together. Like that sounds stupid, but it's better than not doing your bills and then you're done with your bills, you can hang out with your friend, right? So it's. I spent way too much time in my life just trying to white knuckle my way into executive functioning. Now as a grown up person it's like, hey, here's the things where I got to be a little bit more out of the box. Here are things that I can grip my teeth and do.
- [52:05]
A
And.
- [52:10]
C
Approaching your journey there from a place of compassion means you are much more likely to build the skills and hang on to them than trying to shame yourself into being able to pay attention.
- [52:21]
B
Absolutely. And partly also I think sometimes the fact that we need accommodations or we need external motivation can induce shame. So I think like coming to a place of acceptance of accommodations like this is a thing I can't and I need accommodations. I Think that can also help melt some of that ADHD shame? Absolutely. Yeah. Well, I'm now feeling anxious about your time because I. I'm looking at the time and I know we're over. Tell, like, tell folks where they can find you. Feel free to share. I know you have a book coming out. Feel free to share a little bit about that. Any. Anything that you'd like to share with our listeners.
- [53:01]
C
Well, yeah, so here's the book, the Neurodiver C Playbook. I'm very proud of it. It's basically everything we talked about today. It's marrying neuroscience and my best talks as a speaker and my best therapy practices as a psychologist and once again, squishing them together. And then I have two primary online presences. Our therapy practice is the neurodiversitycollective.com that's where me and my team provide therapy virtually all over the country. And then if what I'm talking about makes sense for your organization, like, oh, wow, we. We actually need to learn more about neurodiversity or whatever that might be, then it's drmatcresky.com. i have a very googleable name, so it's easy to find. You know, like, well, you know, I'm chronically online. What can I say? But, you know, I mean, there's a lot of good work out there to do and I'm trying to do it.
- [53:57]
A
Love it. We'll have all of that show notes, including. Oops, sorry, Megan, Go ahead.
- [54:02]
B
I think I was just going to say some awkward niceties, like it's appreciated or something. Go ahead, Patrick.
- [54:07]
A
Awkward niceties. Fast forward into. All of Matt's information will be in the show notes, including his 900 talks, not his 400 talks. We'll update that bio for you. Thank you so much for coming on and being a part of this. We'll definitely have you back on. Sometimes we get pitched by PR companies and we're always like, I don't know how this is going to go, but I've really enjoyed this. So thank you for having the conversation.
- [54:30]
C
It was a pleasure. You guys are just so knowledgeable and passionate and you created such a great place for us to connect here. I mean, yeah, I like, I feel like if we had more time, we would just keep going. And that's always the sign of a good podcast. Frankly, it's a good sign of good people. So let's.
- [54:47]
D
Yeah.
- [54:48]
C
Awkward niceties, Megan. Awkward niceties.
- [54:52]
A
Now that we're all uncomfortable, new episodes out on Fridays, like download, subscribe and share and Goodbye.
- [55:08]
B
Hey, it's Dr. Neff here. This season we are clearly talking about autistic burnout, a topic that Neurodivergent Insights has covered extensively. So if you would like more resources to supplement your learning, we've put together a page where we've curated all of our autistic burnout resources freed and paid resources. We have lots of articles on autistic burnout. We have a upcoming free email course. It's going to be released soon. We have workbooks on autistic burnout. So if you'd like to check out our resources again, both free and paid, you can go to neurodivergentinsights.com burnout resources. It's linked below and in the show notes. I hope you don't need these resources, but if you do, they are there for you.